Graduate student service is honored with Dixon-Levy awards

From food drives to alternative healing workshops, UCSB’s campus community is reinvigorating the meaning of service. Three graduate students and one faculty member who have stood out for their service will receive the Dixon-Levy Service Award from the campus’s Graduate Student Association (GSA).

“This year’s nominees all made integral contributions to our campus. We recognize all of them for their incredible work in our community,” said Gustavo Prado Sampaio, who  serves as the GSA vice president of communications and events. “It was incredibly inspiring to learn more about the extraordinary things so many are doing to contribute to the betterment of our departments, campus organizations, and student life more generally.”

A lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Pedro Craveiro `22, received the award for his work as a faculty consultant and instructional designer for numerous  Canvas sites dedicated to teaching assistant development programs like Summer Teaching Institute for Associates (STIA) and Teaching Assistant Orientation (TAO). As a graduate student at UCSB, Craveiro served as a GSA executive officer from 2019 through 2021.  

Linguistics doctoral student Kristian Ali serves as vice president of the UCSB Queer & Trans Graduate Student Union. Ali also served as graduate facilitator of Thriving Not Surviving, a free weekly student-led initiative that provides access to alternative healing workshops for student survivors of interpersonal violence.   

While pursuing her doctorate in sociology, Emily Fox has served as an executive board member of the Sociology Graduate Student Association, UAW 2865 Recording Secretary and Head Steward, and is a former president of the UCSB Graduate Student Apartment Community Council.

Veronica Wilson is a graduate student in the Department of Communication. During her term as graduate student advisor for Lambda Pi Eta, the UCSB Communication Honor Society, Wilson launched the Food Drive initiative. She also served as graduate student representative on the Student Mental Health Oversight Committee and is a  peer supporter for the Lean on Me mental health support program.

Graduate students who received honorable mentions include Elizabeth Quinn-Jensen (psychological and brain sciences), Fabián Pavón (Chicana/o studies and Racial Justice Fellow) and Anthony Galaviz (molecular, cellular and developmental biology).